1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to awarding, accumulating and redeeming promotional points using an electronic game. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic game exhibiting a plurality of display windows or display segments as part of a game display. Each window or display segment of the game display may show a different subject of display such as an interactive game, an Internet connection, a control bar or other element, advertising from sponsors, real time promotional point accumulation totals, promotional or award items for which points may be redeemed, and the like. Game players may accumulate promotional points through a variety of gaming and non-gaming activities and may then exchange the promotional points to purchase promotional or award items, which may be associated with or provided by sponsors. Alternatively, game players may choose to play games where promotional points are tendered instead of money.
2. State of the Art
A number of organizations such as credit card companies, automobile manufacturers, rental car companies, department stores, long distance telephone organizations, financial institutions, casinos and others have offered a number of differently-structured programs for awarding promotional incentives to encourage purchases of goods or services. These incentives have included specific award items or discount offers from catalogs, based on the volume of activity in an account. Other promotional systems have involved discounts on goods or services offered by third parties. For example, discount coupons have been offered for airline tickets based on a minimum level of investment at a bank or savings and loan. Similarly, holders of bank cards have been offered deeply discounted or free air travel based on a certain level of activity using a general purpose charge card or have been credited with frequent flier miles based on activity in a charge card account. Stores or businesses have also issued their own charge cards and awarded store credit based upon amounts charged to the card.
In addition to the promotional awards listed previously, promotional points, which can be exchanged for discounts or promotional items, are sometimes awarded by businesses to encourage customers to spend money on merchandise or services offered by their business. Several decades ago, retail businesses such as department stores, grocery stores and gas stations, began awarding green stamps or trade stamps to customers for purchases made. Promotional points used by many businesses today are similar to green stamps in that they are offered as a reward for spending money. Unlike green stamps, however, many modern promotional points systems electronically store point totals. One example of a promotional point system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,314 to Kanter (Jul. 16, 1996), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Kanter discloses system of networked computers at various local and distant member store locations, all communicating with a central control center. Each of the networked computers records and transmits data relating to sales transactions between program participants and the member stores to the central control center. The central control center then uses the sales data in combination with previous participant performance data, internal award conversion tables, pyramidal association tables, award applicable merchandise UPC codes and other relevant data, to calculate, post and/or issue discounts, raffle entries, store-credit returns, points or cash values in response to the performance of the program participants. Program participants may then collect their award, or redeem their points at pre-selected locations.
Businesses with business sites on the Internet, or “online”, have also become involved in awarding promotional points for customers who purchase merchandise online. U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,391 to Ikeda et al. (Aug. 10, 1999), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, describes an online shopping mall established through a computer network. Ikeda et al. disclose a system wherein promotional points are awarded corresponding to the dollar amount a customer spends on merchandise at the shops in the online shopping mall. A points storage device stores the number of points accumulated by the customer. The points may be redeemed in the form of discounts on purchases at the online shops. By using an online shopping mall system, customers are not required to carry a magnetic card, the time from issuance and redemption of the promotional points can be reduced, and points issuance ratios can be readily altered to encourage purchases at various shops or during various seasons by awarding relatively more points.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,870 to Storey (Jun. 30, 1998), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, also discloses an online shopping system wherein a user may access product catalogs through a program for shopping online. The user may electronically place an order, in response for which the program automatically checks the user's credit and electronically issues a purchase order to the supplying company. The program also calculates award points, updates the award account of enrolled users, and communicates the number of awarded points to the user. Enrolled users may browse through an award catalog and electronically redeem an amount of awarded points towards an item in the catalog. The program then electronically places an award redeeming order with an awards distributor and updates the user's award account. The program may also be configured to display what level of award the user has achieved and how many additional points the user needs to achieve a higher award level.
Like other businesses, casinos have also adopted the concept of awarding promotional points for activities relating to the business of the casino. U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,647 to Boushy (Jun. 2, 1998), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, relates to a system and method for implementing a customer tracking program to record and store a customer's gaming and non-gaming activity at casino properties. Boushy discloses a computer network system wherein customer information is accumulated at each affiliated casino through one or more local area network (“LAN”)-based management systems, updated to a central patron database (“CPDB”) that is coupled to each casino LAN through a wide area network (“WAN”). Customer accounts are automatically activated and provided with information from the CPDB each time a customer from one casino property firsts visits an affiliated casino property. Customer accounts are updated with new activity data whenever the casino receives customer data from electronic input devices associated with the customer spending money on casino property. Customers are awarded promotional points based upon their tracked activity at all affiliated casino properties. The point awards are redeemable for gifts, meals, cash and the like, at any of the affiliated casino properties. Like the online shopping mall system of Ikeda et al., Boushy teaches that the point award parameters may be adjusted to encourage activity at different casino properties or different venues within a casino.
When playing electronic games in a casino, promotional points may be awarded based upon amounts wagered, games played, or numerous other money transactions between a player and a casino. However, to determine how many promotional points have been accumulated a player must ask casino personnel at an attended booth. To redeem the promotional points accumulated, a player must visit a self-serve kiosk where promotional prizes are displayed. It would be beneficial to enable a player to more readily determine or even track the player's promotional points and redeem them more easily.
In recent years, it has become known in casinos to add second or so-called “bonus” game structures to existing gaming machines, eligibility to play the second game typically being triggered by an event in play of the first game. In addition, some new gaming machines are configured at the inception with the capability for an additional, bonus game. Bonus games are known to be initiated at some point during play of a first, or primary, game where a predetermined combination of symbols has appeared, or a predetermined number of games has been played by a player.
Methods and apparatus for networking or associating a plurality of electronic devices such as electronic games to a common controller and awarding, tracking and managing promotional points based upon account activity are known in the art. Several examples of promotional points systems have already been previously discussed herein. Some additional examples include U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,196 to Wendkos (Nov. 9, 1999) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,932 to Eberhardt et al. (Mar. 21, 1995), the disclosures of each of which patents are incorporated herein by reference.
In addition to their use as a game or for awarding promotional points in casinos, slot machines have also been used to advertise sponsors of a casino. U.S. Pat. No. 5,941,772 to Paige (Aug. 24, 1999) discloses a slot machine used to promote a casino sponsor. The invention of Paige discloses a video display slot machine game wherein the familiar “7-7-7” or bells or cherries on the slot rollers are replaced by product logos of a sponsoring company to link the act of winning with the product advertised. Coded member cards and a computer database are used to collect information on member activity for use in awarding promotional points.
Advertising material has also been incorporated into electronic games. U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,664 to Ebisawa (Aug. 31, 1999) discloses an electronic racing game wherein advertising material is incorporated into the racing game display graphics as if it were part of the original game programming. The advertising material of Ebisawa can be remotely updated by modifying the advertising codes or graphics. U.S. Pat. No. 5,643,088 to Vaughn et al. (Jul. 1, 1997) discloses an interactive game wherein interactive advertising is transmitted to a television or associated display in conjunction with a broadcast of an interactive game event. The game event is rendered interactive by allowing viewers to predict what will happen to the other players in the game, or play along with the game. The advertising is interactive in that a viewer can request additional information about a product or service advertized through an associated keyboard and receive immediate information.
For each of these examples of advertising in electronic games, however, the advertising is not directly before the game player throughout the game being played. The advertising displayed is either intermittent throughout the game (as with Ebisawa and Paige), or alternates with, or is on a separate monitor, from the game (as with Vaughn et al.). Thus, sponsors' advertising material is not before a game player continuously throughout game play.
Electronic games and their methods and apparatus for use are also well known in the art. Electronic games include games of chance, games of skill, and games involving both skill and chance. Examples of several patents describing games of chance include U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,536 to Davids et al. (Nov. 10, 1998), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,716 to Saffari et al. (Jun. 23, 1998), U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,460 to Fulton (Oct. 13, 1998) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,820 to Morro et al. (Sep. 7, 1999).
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic game 102 as found in the art. An electronic game 102 typically includes a microprocessor or other computer 104 having a central processing unit (“CPU”) 106 and memory 108. The computer may be coupled to a number of peripheral devices such as, by example only, a display screen 110 (e.g., a cathode ray tube (“CRT”), plasma display, liquid crystal display (“LCD”), and/or a display based on light emitting diodes (“LED”)), possibly having a touchscreen input 112 (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,397 to Dickinson (Sep. 14, 1999)), and/or buttons, keys or other user input devices 114. Preferably a coin, currency or card acceptor device 116 (to accept a credit card, gaming card, smart card and the like) permits a player to activate a game play or place wagers. The electronic game may also include a separate scoreboard display 118.
Electronic games may also be coupled to one or more other computers such as a central computer 120 of a casino, e.g. via a network card 122 and link 124, modem 126 and the like. The game parameters 128, such as how, when and where particular images will appear on the display screen 110, how the game works and how to operate the various elements operably coupled to the computer 104, are stored in the memory 108. The electronic game 102 may be housed in a game housing such as, by example only, those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,820,460 to Fulton (Oct. 13, 1998) and Des. 404,436 to McGahn et al. (Jan. 19, 1999).
Initiating an electronic game can be done as simply as by inserting a coin or, more comprehensively, for example, by inserting an identification card, such as a “smart card” having a programmed microchip or a magnetic strip coded with a player's identification and credit totals. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,874 to Dickinson et al. (Nov. 30, 1993), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,045 to Biorge et al. (Sep. 8, 1998) uses a writeable identification card, such as a “smart card” to eliminate the need for a network or direct connection between remote systems and a common controller or point database. Promotional point and credit information may be retrieved, recorded and updated using the “smart card.” Alternatively, it is known to transfer money to a game through an electronic funds transfer as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,983 to Crevelt et al. (May 11, 1999).
Existing electronic game displays include multiple images representing various aspects of a game such as a game portion, a credit total portion and a wager amount portion. Other electronic game displays include an additional bonus award portion to indicate an amount of a bonus award which may be won, typically through multiple games. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,148 to Burne et al. (Dec. 22, 1998) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,418 to Adams (Jun. 15, 1999).
The Internet also includes casino or game host sites offering displays similar to those found in conventional electronic games. Generally, to play an Internet game, a software file is downloaded to a player's computer or terminal, which may then be used to install the necessary software for the game and/or access the casino or game host Internet site. As with a conventional electronic game, Internet electronic games may be accessed using an identification code or name to identify a specific player and retrieve that player's credit total or play history. Unlike standard electronic games, however, many Internet electronic games provide an option to play for free, usually in the context of a “demonstration” game or to teach a potential player about a particular game. Thus, a player may access an electronic game such as a casino game through the Internet, and use “play” money instead of “real” money to enjoy the thrill of playing, without the risk of loss. Any “play” money won, however, has no actual monetary or other value outside of the game context.